MALE RPAS drone to launch the European Defence Fund

On July 25, the French National Assembly defence committee auditioned Eric Trappier, President of the French Aerospace Industry Association (GIFAS) and CEO of Dassault Aviation.

H

e underlined 3 reasons why the MALE RPAS drone [1] project is the perfect project to launch the EU Defence and Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) – under the European Defence Fund’s capability window:

It matches the EU defence cooperation objective: the MALE RPAS drone will be developed by three companies (Airbus Defence and Space, Dassault Aviation and Leonardo Finmeccanica), in four Member States (France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

It matches the “pooling of funds and resources” objective: the project will foster synergies, limit redundancies, reduce R&D spending and eventually ensure EU’s leadership in surveillance drones.

The timetable fits: the drone, still in the study and definition phase, will be developed in 2018 with a first flying test in 2023 while the EU defence and industrial development programme will be operational in 2019.

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